Pounds Count!

 

DD’s new (to her) town home is in an addition that has a gate at the entrance.  It is a very nice neighborhood, but isn’t a huge, pretentious one like I have always thought of when I hear “gated community”.  It is just a nice neighborhood of town homes with the extra security of a gate.

A couple of DD’s girlfriends had a party for her and her daughters Saturday night — a starting-your-new-life party.   And it was a lovely party . . . once you got in!  But a continuing theme to the conversation at the party was the trouble some of us had getting through the gate.

To make a long story a little shorter (yes, I can do that, if I work realllly hard at it!), on the invitation we were told that to get through the gate we needed to enter #3400 on the key pad next to the gate.  Simple enough, right?  Well apparently not, because there were some really funny stories about the repeated attempts some guests made to get in, including randomly calling neighbors who were listed in the electronic directory, because DD isn’t listed yet, to ask for their help getting in.  And my favorite story was the friend who decided that since the code didn’t work when she entered it, she must be trying to get into the wrong neighborhood, so she drove away twice to look for another near-by neighborhood with a gate (all the while repeatedly calling her husband for advice on how to find DD and leaving DD hysterically funny voice mails about her dilemma), before returning for a third try and  finally figuring out how to get in.

Here was the problem.  We were all entering “3 4 0 0“  Do you know what we should have been entering?  This, “# 3 4 0 0“.  Would you have thought to enter the pound sign?  Those of us who had trouble getting in were seeing that as a numbers sign, so we were just reading the instructions as “enter the number 3400″.

I’ve been told that the English language is, by far, the most complicated in the world.  But wouldn’t you think “complicated” would translate into “precision accuracy”?  So, my observation is that even with all this complex English language stuff, we’ve apparently not been specific enough about the intended function of  symbols as just silent assistants to words and numbers, rather than, as in this case, the symbols being a part of the word or number.

I received a forwarded e-mail recently that seems to address this problem too.  It said something like this:

“How would you pronounce this new baby’s name? Le-a”

It then gave you several ways it might be pronounced . . . le-ah, lee, la-ah.

But, nope, none of those were what the new mother had in mind, so mis-pronunciations of her new baby’s name were already frustrating her.  Her quote went something like this, “That dash ain’t silent!!”  Her intention was for the name to be pronounced, “la-dash-ah”.

 I see myself as providing a public service here by bringing up these two examples where symbols have been very important to meaning!  So, just consider yourself forewarned.  And, if you encounter a person whose name is written “Qtr#er” — using my new-found knowledge, I would guess it’s pronounced “Quarterpounder”!

Sometimes a “pound” is really important somewhere other than at Weight Watchers!

A bird in the hand . . .

 

. . . is worth two in the bush.

I was so sorry to see the Colts lose last night.  I know that Peyton’s interception will be the most talked-about mistake, but there were plenty of others too so, unfortunately, they just didn’t have one of their best games in the Super Bowl.

But I would guess this will bring back talk about the Colts management decision to not try to win their last two regular season games to “save” their players for their run to the Super Bowl.

I can’t help but think that it would make it a little easier to deal with the loss they suffered yesterday if they at least had the record for a perfect regular season to show for this season.

I knew a man once who was going back to school to get his degree after being in the workforce many years.  The first thing he did was aim for an associates degree.  His reasoning being that after two years he would have “locked in” that degree, no matter what happened while he was working at getting the four-year degree.  He executed his plan exactly like that — he earned his two-year degree (and it did take a few additional classes that wouldn’t have been necessary if he were just working toward the four-year one) and then went on to get his four-year degree.  Some might say that the two-year degree was made “useless” when he got the four-year one.  But I would say that he took the achieveable while working toward the desirable.

Be careful not to let the “bird in a hand” fly away while you’ve got your eye on catching the two birds you think are in a near-by bush!

Young “Chick” in a “Crick”

 

    I like this picture of my sister Betty when she was 18, wading in the creek at Grandpa’s little farm in Fordland, Missouri.

   In April she will celebrate her 80th birthday.

May we all be as active, cheerful and caring when we approach 80!

Napping as an Olympic sport? My family could have won gold!

 

Some families may nap casually, but in my family, we took our napping seriously!  If there were a sport called “napping” our family would definitely have been a championship team.

The beauty of napping as a sport is that it requires no equipment (well, maybe a blanket) and can be practiced anywhere …

out in the open:

   a “team” of family members “practicing” at a park in the 40’s

   another practice squad at the same picnic  I have no idea why the cousin in front has a band-aid on his upper lip.  Typically there aren’t many injuries in this sport. 

(btw, I think someone should be checking to see what the little kid in the background is putting in her mouth when no one is looking!)

or under cover:

    Daddy in the 40’s “reading the paper” after work.

   A chip off the ol’ block 20 years later, I was “reading the paper” after work.  Hubby told me to “wake up!” before he took the picture.  Obviously, his family didn’t adher to the same “rules” for taking pictures of competitive nappers as ours did.  My family favored capturing shots when we were actually practicing our craft, i.e., napping!

   And the “sport” can either be practiced solo (my brother, Jimmy) …

   or in teams.  This team of Jimmy, Betty and Daddy probably didn’t get the maximum ”style” points because Betty was out of uniform — no short black socks.   

While everyone in my family has participated in the family’s favorite ”sport” at one time or another, there is, without a doubt, one all-time champion, Daddy!

 

Daddy could always sleep anywhere.  Confirmed by the fact that the pastor of our church told Daddy one time that if he didn’t doze a little during the sermon, the pastor worried that something was wrong — either with Daddy or with his sermon!

 

You climb a mountain one step at a time!

 

    I’ve pulled the drop leaf table in the sun room out into the middle of the room and it is now Album Restoration Central.  This was taken on about the first day and doesn’t look nearly as messy as it is now.

   This is what had started happening to some of the pages.  They would just flake off around the edges.  Whenever I would look through one, I would end up with black flakes on the floor around me.

   As I’m doing the new pages, I’m using a white pen to sometimes tell a little something about the people on a page.

   For this group I wanted to tell who they were, but they were sooo close together!  So I made a copy of the picture at 150 percent to blow them up a little (and I mean that in the kindest way), then cut apart the copy into three smaller groups that were easier to label.

Each page presents its own unique challenges.

I’m about two-thirds of the way through this first album.

  There is at least one other album in the stack I have here right now that will have to be done.  And all the really old albums are still at Martha’s!

Yikes!  What have I gotten myself into?

Seriously, it really is fun to look at all the old pictures.  It’s funny that I feel like I “see” them so much more clearly when I take them off the page and handle them each personally.  That reminds me that I heard one time that if you really want to remember something, use as many of your senses to “experience” it as possible — like touching it.

I keep reminding myself that every journey starts with the first step, which I’ve already taken.  And, after that, you (I) just have to keep taking one step after another – and definitely avoid looking up too often to see how high the mountain is!

Boys and their toys

 

  Hubby and his younger brothers Denny and Keith playing “cowboys”.

    Hubby has always said that they were probably poor, but when you lived on a farm you didn’t know you were poor because you always had plenty to eat.  But, apparently there wasn’t much money for toys, like toy guns.  Because he said the only guns he remembers him and his brothers having were ones that his dad carved for them out of wood — or, they would use anything that even remotely resembled a gun.  Here he is holding a toy hatchet — he says they each had one and those were one of their favorite gun substitutes.

This brings me to a story that Hubby has “confessed” to from his childhood:

The way the story goes is that Jerry, the older boy who lived across the road got a new toy.  And, as is human nature, he wondered who he could show his new toy to who would be impressed.  Ah, there were two of the little kids across the road out playing their favorite game of cowboys and indians.  He would go over and show it to them!  He knew they would like it … because it was a cap gun!

Boy, did he guess right!  Hubby and Denny both ooohed and ahhhed over the shiney gun that actually shot caps!  Unfortunately, it hadn’t occurred to Jerry what would happen next … they both wanted to shoot it!  He really didn’t want to share his caps.

But they persisted, so he reluctantly told Denny he could shoot it.   “Yes! Yes! Yes!”  Denny was excited!

Hubby was thinking “Oh, boy!  That’s great! He’s going to let us shoot it!  I’ll be next!”   But then Jerry told Hubby that he wasn’t going to let him shoot it.  Because Jerry had “rules” about how they could try out his gun, and he was afraid Hubby wouldn’t follow his “rules”.  Well, really there was just one rule … they could only shoot it once.

So, Jerry handed the cap gun to Denny and Denny shot it as instructed … just once.  And then he handed it back to Jerry.

Hubby then asked again if he couldn’t “Pleeeeease” shot the gun too.   Nope.  Jerry was just sure that Hubby would shoot it more than once.

Noooo.  Absolutely not.  Hubby would just shoot it once, just like Denny did.

So, reluctantly, Jerry handed the gun to Hubby.

Ohhh, it looked and felt just like what he pictured a real gun would, with a trigger and cylinder that moved and everything!  And when Denny had shot it, it had made a loud “crack” and you could even smell the gunpowder!  It was wonderful!  And now was Hubby’s turn to experience all that first hand.  He pointed it out across the yard and shot it just once.  “Crack!”  But then something terrible happened …suddenly his resolve to shoot it just once went out the window and all he could think about was how much fun it was  to shoot a real cap gun.  So in an instant, instead of handing it back to Jerry, ”crackcrackcrackcrack!!!”  In quick succession, Hubby shot the other four caps left in the gun!

Then Hubby handed the gun back to Jerry and sheepishly told Jerry he was sorry.  But, it was too late for apologies.  Jerry had just known Hubby wouldn’t be able to resist shooting the gun more than once!  He was mad and started crying.  He took his gun and marched back across the road swearing that he was never going to play with Hubby again!

Of course, they did play together again, and Hubby doesn’t remember the subject ever coming up again.  But he also doesn’t remember EVER getting another chance to shoot Jerry’s beautiful, shiney cap gun. 

This story was at the beginning of Hubby’s life-long love of guns.  Being a farm boy, he had lots of opportunities to shoot as he got older.  And (to show you how times have changed) in high school he belonged to the Rifle Club and no one thought anything about it when the boys in that club carried their rifles to school on the bus!

   Are you wondering now what this table in one of our spare bedrooms has to do with Hubby’s love of guns?  Well, I’ll tell you.

   After Hubby’s parents passed away this table is one of the keepsakes we bought from the estate because of Hubby’s fond memories of it being the table that held their big radio that they all sat around and listened to in the evening, in the before-TV days.  He also said that he remembered sitting on the floor in front of the radio listening to shows like The Lone Ranger and looking at the table and thinking what a good pretend gun one of those legs would make!  So we have had the table at least 30 years now and I still think of it as the “gun leg table”.

Hubby has done some hunting, but he mainly enjoys target shooting.  And, he has a talent for it, but he also shoots alot and the saying “practice makes perfect” is true.  So he is a verrrry good shot.  But he is something of a rarity in that he is a collector and a shooter.  Many collectors don’t shoot most, if any, of the guns they collect.  In comparison, I don’t think Hubby has ever owned a gun that he didn’t shoot.  Some of his favorite ones have been very old guns that he has restored (he is very good at the mechanics of guns) and then enjoyed shooting.

I couldn’t even guess how many guns Hubby has owned, but I know it’s in the hundreds.  It isn’t as expensive a hobby as you might think, because he has built up his collection gradually and mostly trades a gun or two that he already has for another one that has caught his eye.

I have occasionally been with Hubby when he walks into a gun store where they know him, and their eyes always light up!  Although most of the time he is trading guns, so while they do make a profit it isn’t like selling a new gun.  But one time the owner of his favorite gun store told me that he was always glad to see me walk in with Hubby because that might mean that we were actually going to buy a gun, not just trade!  No, wonder they’re always so nice to me.  They know I have the checkbook!

So, shooting and gun collecting have been Hubby’s one life-long hobby.  And when I think back to that story about Jerry’s cap gun and then think about the sometimes very expensive guns that Hubby owns now, the saying that comes to mind is, “The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys!”

An old baby and an older saying!

 

Stand by for LOTS of old pictures now that I am, by necessity, looking at every picture in Mama’s photo albums as I re-do them. 

When I saw this trio of pictures in the album I’m currently working on, it immediately made me think of this old saying, even though Mama had labeled the second photo  ”winking” and the third one “blowing a kiss”.  And, by the way, I’m just sure that first one, even though it wasn’t labeled, is me listening very closely to what Mama is telling me.  I think I can hear her even now, “DON’T STAND UP!  DON’T STAND UP!  Oh all right, stand up then.  But stand still so that you don’t fall while I snap a picture!”

      Hear no evil …

   See no evil …

      Speak no evil. 

Yes, thank you for noticing.  I was quite the stylish little dresser.  Socks and sandals — gotta love ‘em.

It’s easier if you put the horse BEFORE the cart!

  

When I want to put a picture with a story I write, I look for it by going  back through my photo archives, guessing at about when I took the photo (because they are grouped by the date I downloaded them from whatever camera I used).  An inexact science at best. 

For example, I recently came across a picture of me as a little kid (yes, I know, there are alot of those!) in the kitchen of our old house in Springfield.  And I realized there was a connection between that picture and one I took about a year ago.  Soooo, I started looking for the more recent picture  so that I could do a post about their connection, but I couldn’t find it.

Part of the problem is that my photos aren’t in consistently-named files.  The Kodak camera I used first, lists them by numeric-only dates, i.e. 8-2-09.  While the Panasonic system that goes with my current camera lists them this way ”Aug 2 2009″.  Also in the mix are old photos I have downloaded (which are filed alphabetically by how I have named them) that, depending on whether I’ve edited them or not, can be found in one or all of four systems — these two systems, plus the “My pictures” on my hard drive and my new Picasa 3 editing program. 

Can you see how comfusing it is for me, an already disorganized person, to locate a specific photo?

Ha!  But I think I’ve discovered a solution!  Late last night when I was looking for the “lost” photo in all those systems, out of frustration, I decided to just start from the beginning of one system and go through each file methodically (not something I always think to do — that methodical thing) until I found the picture I wanted.

But as I went through the files, I would come across another picture that I would think, “Oh, I should do a post about that!”  So, I pulled up my blog too, and started creating drafts for future posts that are just the picture(s) I’ve come across and a ”working title” that will remind me what picture it is when I look at the title. 

I now realize I was going at the link between pictures and posts from the wrong end!  Rather than deciding to write a post and THEN looking for the picture that I have in mind for it, I am now going to go through my photos, put them in drafts, and use those drafts to write posts!

Of course, not all of my posts necessarily include photos and some of them are about a picture I took yesterday, but when they are going to include an older picture, this is going to be a much less stressful way to do it.

I just hope WordPress doesn’t have a limit on how many drafts you can store, because I think I may end up with alot of them!

May this be an encouragement to all of you.  If at 63 years old I can still have an occasional “ah ha” moment and come up with a new way to do something, then I hope that will encourage you to never say “I’m too old (or set in my ways) to change.”

May you have an “ah ha” moment of your own today!

I am blessed

 

My last post Preserving History was about my mother’s photo albums which I enjoy using in posts here and the fact that my sister Martha is giving them all to me to keep, even though she has always especially treasured them and enjoyed having them with her. 

I am blessed by Martha’s love and generousity.

And then I received this – my blogging friend, Chrissy’s comment on that post:

Praying and believing with you!  Mama’s albums have blessed me too!  It is much to my heart, not quite like yours, but much to my heart!  I pray you keep on track with this goal and you reach it and you feel the sense of accomplishment you deserve! I pray it blesses Martha!  I pray that the sense of “hoping you stay on target”  gets you to target and that you get to enjoy Martha and your conversation every time you produce another album restored!  Gett’em Sandra!! 

I am so touched and blessed by my praying friend, Chrissy.

And, I am blessed by all of you who are reading this.  You are my “neighbors” in a huge, diverse neighborhood and many of you  have become dear friends who add to my life immeasurably. 

Even though they aren’t always this clear, I believe God regularly blesses us through people He puts in our lives.

May God especially bless each of you on this Sunday.

Preserving History

 

I think Mama did a great job of documenting our family’s history in her book I Remember and in her many photo albums.  And I have come to really enjoy using both of those resources for posts here on my blog.

Of course, I have a copy of Mama’s book, but the albums of her pictures have been stored at my sister Martha’s house since Mama died nine years ago, after living with Martha and her husband for her final years. 

So, when I started using Mama’s pictures on this blog, I began borrowing the albums a few at a time from Martha.  But sometimes I’ll have a story I want to share out of Mama’s book, but I don’t have the album right then which would have pictures from that year.   And Martha lives over two hours away, so it isn’t possible to just “run over” to get whichever album I need.

A few days ago Martha and I were having one of our monthly phone chats (I also sometimes make a day trip down to see her to go out for lunch and spend an afternoon playing Yahtzee!).  Anyway, I was telling her that several of the albums that are “visiting”  me right now are getting in pretty bad shape and I think I need to replace the pages. 

In fact, last week I took this album which is one of the worst to Archiver’s to see what kind of replacement pages I could get.  I had invisioned ones that were clear plastic and had pockets so that I could just put a picture in each pocket, and if anything was written on the back, you would be able to see it through the back of the page.  But apparently there aren’t any pages like that that are available for albums the size of these old ones (I also looked on the internet), so I bought black pages and corners (very much like the same ones that Mama used all those years ago!) to transfer the pictures to new pages. 

After I told Martha all this, she gave me a very touching surprise.  She has always been very sentimental about the things of Mama’s that still reside with her.  She and Mama had a very close relationship and she always said it was a privilege to get to care for Mama in her final years.  So I’ve always understood that while Martha was perfectly fine with me borrowing the albums, she really preferred for them to “live” at her house. 

But that means it was something of a shock to me when she offered me all of Mama’s albums to keep at my house!  I know what an act of love that is by her and I am so touched by it.

So, I have the supplies and am ready to begin the preserving of history.  I hope that I will be able to stay on task and get this first one done quickly, for two reasons.  First of all, I would like to take it with me the next time I visit Martha (at which time I will retrieve the rest of the albums too) because I would like for her to see how (hopefully) nice it looks with it’s new pages.  But also, I tend to start a project and then get distracted and have trouble keeping on task until the project is completed.  So I would appreciate it if you would say a little prayer for me that I can keep my eye on the goal, and get these albums restored so that they will be there for future generations to enjoy!